MN Woman Spent Company Funds On Fancy Clothes, Spas, Hotels: Feds

EDINA, MN — An Eden Prairie woman has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million from her employer, U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger announced Thursday.

Monica Svobodny, 51, worked as the Supply Chain and Engineering Manager at the furniture manufacturing company SICO, located in Edina.

As a manager, Svobodny often used company credit cards for unauthorized personal expenses such as designer clothing, spa services, and luxury hotel stays, authorities said.

To cover her fraud, she left unapproved credit card expenses as “pending” for accounting purposes, according to investigators.

On more than 300 occasions, she used company cards to transfer funds to herself via PayPal to cover personal expenses, prosecutors said.

Svobodny also edited PayPal transaction receipts and fraudulently listed some of the expenses as payments to a defunct company, according to investigators.

In total, Svobodny knowingly and willfully embezzled more than $1,137,000 over a period of seven years, authorities said.

The case was the result of an investigation conducted by the Edina Police Department with assistance from the FBI.